Marco and the Devil's Bargain (12 page)

“
I thought that was an arrow wound.”

He laughed, a low sound probably not intended for anyone's ears but his wife's, but there they all stood. “We've never taken an exact census of my scars, Paloma.”

She grinned at him and rolled up her own left sleeve, pointing to her forearm. “If I have to watch so I can inoculate Toshua, it had better be a convenient place.”

As she sat completely still on the edge of the bed, Anthony spoke to a servant hovering in the hallway. He brought in a little table, pulled it up to the bed, and picked up a stool another servant had brought into the room. Before Anthony could do anything, Señor Mondragón gestured for him to stand aside while he picked Paloma up and sat down on the bed, holding her on his lap. She let out an enormous sigh and leaned against him. Anthony envied them for one irrational moment, until he reminded himself that nothing in life was fair. Mooning around wasn't getting him one step closer to Pia Maria. Ask any American. Time was money.

“
R
est your arm on the table, Señora Mondragón.”

“
Paloma,” she whispered, “just Paloma.” Her voice was hoarse and she hated to show her terror, but she did as he directed.

Noticing that she hunched over because she sat higher than the table, Marco spread his legs and settled her between them. “Better?” he asked, his voice close to her ear.

She nodded, her eyes on the tin container that the
médico
pulled from the shirt Luisa had given him.
This could kill me
, she thought, and leaned back against Marco, by instinct wanting to distance herself from the poison. His bulk reassured her, reminding her that only this morning they had made love on this same bed. He knew her so well.

Paloma recognized the linen napkin he spread on the table, one of Luisa's.
This is no banquet
, she told herself irrationally. She glanced at Toshua, wondering how he was digesting this. He leaned over the doctor's shoulder. Antonio frowned at him, but did not have the courage to say anything.

“
Just sit next to Marco,” she told him.

“
I should not do that. It is your private place,” he said in protest.

Paloma blushed. “Not here at Luisa's. Sit.”

He did as she said. He grunted as Antonio Gil took out a small tool that looked like a tiny fork with three tines.

“
It's wicked sharp,” the physician said, speaking in a conversational tone now, reminding her of Father Eusebio back in Santa Fe at San Miguel. Several times she had escaped from her aunt's grasp long enough to accompany the priest to some of the huts in his parish of Analco. He washed grit and gooey matter from children's eyes while she held their hands. She could not imagine two men less alike, and yet they both were healers.

“
I'm just going to scrape this for one inch, but hardly below the surface. Hold still now. Steady her arm, señor.”

Marco did as Antonio asked. She held her breath, then let it out slowly, even as Marco did. They breathed in unison. It felt no worse than a mosquito bite. A little blood pooled to the surface, but only a little.

“
I've cut off two two-inch lengths of thread, one for you and one for our Comanche friend here. Ordinarily, I would ask you to look away, because I do not want you breathing and scattering anything from the scabs. You need to watch, though. Señor, would you just put your hand over your wife's nose and mouth? Lightly.”

Marco did as the physician asked. His hand trembled only a little.

As she watched, Gil gently tamped the thread into the tin container. When he raised it, bits of matter clung to the twisted cotton. With an economy of motion that told her he must have done this many times, he set the tissue-laden thread directly over the furrow on her forearm. In the next moment he wrapped her arm with a strip of linen from another of Luisa's napkins, splitting the ends and securing the knot. He sat back.

“
Keep it dry.” He glanced at the Comanche seated next to Marco. “Your turn. You want Paloma to do what I just did?
I
can do it, you know.”

Toshua grunted. “I trust her more than I trust you.” He appraised the physician for a long moment, until Gil tugged at his collar. “Maybe I do not trust you at all.”

“
Your choice.” Gil nodded to Paloma. “You sit here.”

She did as he said, after patting Marco's leg. He moved after she did, standing beside her now, as Toshua slid into her former spot. Paloma regarded him seriously, ashamed of her own lack of trust, in light of his. But here was Antonio Gil, bending over her, pointing out the little fork.

“
Just the lightest touch.”

“
Should I wash it first?”

The physician laughed and looked at Marco. “Your wife, sir! We're inoculating the most dangerous thing in the world, and she worries about cleaning off the tool! I love women, I truly do.”

Paloma blushed and looked down. Other than from her own cousin, she had not heard hurtful, mocking words in a long time. She looked up quickly at the soft whoosh of a knife leaving its sheath, then held her breath as Toshua placed the tip right against the point of the physician's jaw. He pushed it until blood appeared in little drops.

“
If she wants to wash it, let her wash it,” Toshua said. He looked at Marco, who seemed also to hold his breath. “I can kill him right now or wait until we are on the Llano Estacado. It's a big space.”

She had to give all credit to her husband. He appeared to be considering the matter, as the physician looked from one to the other with terrified eyes. “Oh, let's wait a bit.”

The knife went back into its sheath. Toshua nodded to her. “Since I do not understand anything that you are doing, it doesn't matter to me whether you wash that thing or not.” He rested his forearm on the table. “Let us begin.”

Paloma nodded and picked up the fork. She held it to Toshua's arm. And did nothing more.

With a wry smile, the Comanche took the fork from her and gently scraped the skin on his own arm. “Now you do the rest.”

Relieved, Paloma picked up the thread and tamped it into the scabs. When she thought she had enough matter on the thread, she looked at the physician, who nodded. It was a simple matter to place the thread into the bloody furrow and bandage Toshua's arm.

“
Done,” Marco said. “Come, señor, and inoculate two of Paloma's outriders. The others have survived
la viruela
. When you finish, we will ride.”

Paloma held up her arm. “Señor Gil, what will happen now?”

“
Probably you and your lord and master would call it God's mystery,” he said, but this time, there was nothing in his voice that mocked her. Obviously, Antonio Gil was a quick study. “I call it medical science. What happens? Give yourself five days, and you will come down with smallpox.”

She couldn't help but shiver while Marco took her hand.

“
You'll be safe and warm in our bed and I will watch over you,” he told her. “Toshua, too.” When he spoke to the physician, he used his voice of command, the one that everyone in Valle del Sol obeyed. “When you have finished on the Double Cross, we will see how many of our neighbors you can inoculate.”

“
What about Señora Gutierrez here?”

“
Luisa will take care of her sons.” He still held Paloma's hand, so he tugged her to her feet. “Come, my dear. You and I will ride the same horse, and the physician will ride yours. Gather what belongings you possess, Antonio Gil. We're leaving as soon as possible.”

Toshua left the room as quietly as he had entered it. Paloma smiled at the way he held up his arm and stared at the bandage.

“
I wonder what he thinks it will do,” she said to Marco, then sighed. “I suppose the same thing had occurred to me.”

She was silent as the physician capped the tin, gathered his tiny instrument in the napkin, and left the room.

Marco released her. “I will take Señor Gil to your horse and come back for you. Gather your things, my love.” He smiled. “And are there stockings?”

“
Certainly there are,” she assured him, striving for her normal tone. “Even a pair for Toshua.”

To think I came here to knit stockings and gossip
, Paloma thought as she gathered her satchel and the stockings. Finding Luisa sitting with her sons, she knelt and kissed her hand as a good sister-in-law should.

“
We will be the lucky ones,” Luisa whispered, touching her forehead to Paloma's.

She returned to the bedroom she had shared with Marco and lay down, looking at her arm and wondering. “What goes on in there?” she asked no one in particular. Not for the first time she wondered what business went on below her skin. Was there a nook or cranny that kept her from conceiving? It was the dearest wish of her heart to know. Obviously her heart and her loins weren't on speaking terms. And now she was going to get smallpox. Just the thought made her shudder.

When Marco returned, he lay down beside her and gathered her close.

“
You know Luisa will scold you for lying on her bed with your boots and spurs on,” she teased.

“
We'll be on our way before she notices,” he replied with a little laugh. He sat up and ran his hands over her body, with a light pinch here and there. “I don't know, Paloma. When we came to del Sol more than a year ago, we shared a horse and you were much skinnier. It's going to be a tight fit.”

She thumped him, which made him wince—to her mind, far more dramatically than the thump warranted.

“
You are heartless! Up you get.”

Marco didn't mind the tight fit. He enveloped her in his cloak and she settled into his arms as she always did, with a tiny sigh of contentment that never failed to touch his heart. They chatted idly for a few minutes; then her comments came at wider and wider intervals until she slept.

The physician rode beside him, no great shakes in the saddle, but then, Antonio Gil wasn't a Spaniard. What was he? Time to find out.

“
Why are you here in Nuevo Mexico?” he asked. “Where did you come from?”

“
Do I have to tell you anything?”

“
As a matter of fact, you do,” Marco replied. Staying affable required an effort. He was tired of this man already. “This is my district and I am
juez de campo
. It's perfectly within my power to torture you for answers, or maybe just because I want to, then send you to prison in Santa Fe. Let me ask again: where are you from? And don't tell me East Texas.”

He watched the little man shrink inside himself and felt uncomfortable playing the bully. This was obviously a man who had been sorely used. If he had been in the rough company of traders for many months, there was no telling what they had done to him. He sought for a kinder tone.

“
Come, come, if we are to be traveling companions in the Llano—even though it is the most stupid scheme you could have concocted—I deserve some answers.”

Gil nodded, but with no visible enthusiasm. Either he didn't understand the jibe, or he knew it was true on some level. Marco reconsidered. Perhaps it wasn't the stupidest thing the man beside him had ever dreamed up.
You haven't told a truth in such a long time that you wouldn't recognize one
, he thought, uneasy.

“
I am from the colony of Georgia, on the Atlantic Ocean. Have you heard of it?”

Why did the man always rub him the wrong way? “We're not entirely ignorant here in Nuevo Mexico,” Marco replied. “Georgia is a buffer colony between the Carolinas and the colony of La Flórida, which I believe the British control right now.” Might as well give the man a little more news. “According to a lieutenant passing through Santa Maria, the British were defeated at a place called Yorktown. Maybe your Georgia will be a state soon, and your country independent.”

If he had thought the news would spark an enthusiastic response, there was none. Obviously this fellow was no patriot. He wanted to ask him more, but something about the set of the man's mouth told him that he, Marco, the
juez
who could demand almost anything of his district, was only allowed a question or two at a time, and he had reached his limit. Perhaps he would allow a comment.

“
If your colonies are to become states soon, when you find your daughter, you can return there in safety.”

Antonio only turned bleak eyes on Marco, as if wondering what he was talking about. Though probably younger than Marco, he looked worn out.

Suddenly Marco understood. He had felt much the same after Felicia and the twins' death: getting from one day to the next took all the energy he possessed. Until he met Paloma—a meeting that had happened so much by chance—he was no better than the little man in borrowed clothes, riding a borrowed horse, with a grandiose plan that only a desperate man would attempt. He leaned toward him, overlooking the way Antonio shied back.

“
We will find your daughter.”

D
arkness came early. They rode through stout gates just as the light faded entirely. So long facing into the wind, Anthony's horse—Paloma's, actually—perked up, and with dainty, mincing steps took him directly into a horse barn. The earthy odors and sudden protection from the wind relieved his heart, or at least what remained of it. He couldn't help smiling at Paloma's loud yawn from the depths of her warm cocoon on her husband's lap. Marco bent his head close to hers and she giggled.
My Lord, they are childish
, Anthony thought, but he knew it was envy.